My First Balloon Ride
My first balloon ride should have been an unmitigated disaster - I should have hated
every second and sworn never to even look at a hot air balloon again. Strangely, just
the opposite happened.
We were in Albuquerque in 1997 during the Balloon Fiesta which takes place during the
first week of October. My daughter really wanted to take a ride in a hot air balloon but
did not want to go alone - as only she and I were in Albuquerque there wasnʼt another
scapegoat to accompany her and I reluctantly agreed to go along. The first thing
against this experience being a success was that I am, at best, a white knuckle flier and
the thought of going up in something as flimsy as a hot air balloon was not comforting.
The second thing against it was the ungodly hour of the morning one had to get up to
get to Fiesta field in time for the dreaded ride - I think we were up and out the door at
something like 4 a.m. That is definitely not my favorite time of day, if it can even be
called day. Lastly it was cold at that hour of the morning, not to mention dark.
We arrived in time for our balloon ride and were told that we would be on the second
hop - the idea was to take off from Fiesta field, land somewhere about 45 minutes later
and then take the second group. We were warned that due to weather conditions the
second hop might not take place - I was quite hopeful that meant I was reprieved.
The first group of passengers took off and we piled into the chase vehicle. This
particular balloon pilot and crew were from Texas and following the balloon was an
interesting experience in that no one really knew where we were going. Eventually we
caught up with our balloon near the University of New Mexico.
The first group of passengers got out and my daughter and I along with a man and his
daughter got in and off we went. We were heading south - the University of New
Mexico campus is actually about 7 miles south of Fiesta field - if we continued going
south we would end up at Albuquerque International Airport and Kirtland Air Force base.
Neither of these establishments really encourage balloon traffic. Further to the south
was Isleta Indian reservation - and they donʼt welcome balloon traffic either.
Youʼve probably guessed that we went directly over Albuquerque Airport and, quite
excitingly, I thought a Southwest flight landed just underneath us. Our pilot was talking
to his crew about trying to head west but there seemed to be no west about. Iʼm not
sure I really understood at this stage that there is no steering on a hot air balloon - only
the wind direction. As an aside, this is what makes Albuquerque the ballooning capital
of the United States. Normally wind generally goes in one direction, say from west to
east, as in the case of the jet stream. In Albuquerque there is ʻthe boxʼ meaning you
can go, say, west at one altitude and then go up or down and ʻboxʼ back the other
direction. On this flight there was no box.
We passed the airport and headed for the Isleta reservation. We seemed to fly over this
for a very long time, only seeing the occasional cow. Then suddenly there was a jeep
racing along below us - it was the tribal policeman. If a balloon needs to land on
reservation land (and this is discouraged) the chase crew must contact the tribal police
and be escorted through the reservation. Evidently we were so far into the reservation
that we only had one last road to land on and this was why the policeman was staying
with us.
We made a rather sudden landing - and this bit could have been totally off-putting as
well - the ground is always much harder than you think it is. In the case of a fast
landing, if there is time, the heavier people are put in the front of the balloon - there was
no time to do this on our flight and the large man behind me very nearly knocked me out
of the balloon.
However, on the bright side, we were down and we had had quite an adventure - so
much for the 45 minute flight, we had been airborne for an hour and a half - and it had
seemed like 10 minutes.
As the balloon was being packed up, my daughter said something to the effect of ʻbeen
there, done thatʼ. I replied - and I have no idea why - that I would really like to learn to
fly a balloon. And that, as they say, is another story.
by Mardi Cone